On a perfectly sunny Southern Californian September afternoon, the Los Angeles chapter of the American Institute of Architects invited to the spectacular home tour, THE HILLS: FROM EAST TO WEST . The tour promised visitors to have a look into residences in the steep hills above Los Angeles that are usually well hidden from the public eye.
Four homes were featured in the program: STEELHOUSE by agps architecture, THE BRARCLIFF VIEW HOUSE by Cambia Designs LLC, OBERFELD RESIDENCE by Studio Pali Fekete architects (SPF:a), and LAGO VISTA GUEST HOUSE by Aleks Istanbullu Architects.

Our very own school bloggers John Tubles and Scott Kepford put on their Sunday shoes, grabbed a digital camera and summarized their impressions of the tour and the featured homes in particular for us.

Read on or jump directly to the Home Tour Report by:
- John Tubles
- Scott Kepford


Last Sunday, September 19th, I had privilege of covering the AIA Los Angeles Home Tours, The Hills: East to West, for Archinect. A little background on these home tours, this program has been around for years and the main purpose of this home tours is to showcase local architects and their well designed residential projects… before it was purely architectural and they showcase homes that were “lived-in” by their owners but lately, sometimes, they showcase newly built homes that are on the market it seems like a real-estate open house minus the canapés but with $75 charge… No matter what home status are, a project showcased in these home tours is a great honor and I believe excellent publicity, in addition to experiencing the enthusiasm of the local architecture community, which in L.A’s Case is a mix of die hard aficionados, students and professionals. And as for the featured area of this specific home tours, “The Hills”, in this case, is in between the boundaries of the Hollywood Hills in the East and the Beverly Hills in the West. This area is a really posh neighborhood in nestled in the canyons of I believe is the San Gabriel Mountains and famous for the sweeping views of Los Angeles, crazy winding 1.5 lane wide roads and of course as the area where most celebrities and the cities elite reside.

House #1: Briarcliff View House
John Pugliese, Assoc. AIA - Cambia Designs LLC


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House #1: Briarcliff View House

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House #1: Briarcliff View House

This house was a remodel but actually a Total Overhaul is a more appropriate description of this project. The former house was this very outdated American Suburban mass housing look and function. The architect opened up the floor plan in both floors for a more useful and configurable space. The south façade has a combination of big windows, curtain walls and Nano Doors with an appropriate overhang to maximize the view and still keep the summer sun out…


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House #1: Briarcliff View House

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House #1: Briarcliff View House

The public living areas of this house is cool because of cross ventilation and the thermal flute but I believe there is still a lack of operable windows in the bedrooms which makes it a tad on the warm side… Also I know space is limited in this Hollywood Hills Home but I still believe that a spiral staircase is not appropriate as the main vertical circulation especially when it connects the first floor to the roof deck.

House #2: Steel House
Marc Angélil and Sarah Graham, FAIA - agps architecture


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House #2: Steel House

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House #2: Steel House

This House is very true to its name, it is very cool and sleek and it could be all yours for only 2.6 Million Dollars!!! What a Deal! Ok…ok all kidding aside, Behind very contemporary cement board clad façade, this house also employs a myriad of green features that makes this eco-friendly as well. The house is two elongated rectangular floors that are stacked to each other and there are two hallways and a central staircase which serves as the main interior circulation… very machine-like living…


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House #2: Steel House

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House #2: Steel House

There are plenty of operable clerestory windows in house for both ventilation and excellent lighting. The pop of bright colors and quirky art works (Papier-mâché replicas of furniture from the Schindler House) add life to a sea of grays and white… The bathrooms for the secondary bedrooms are quite questionable because I believe Americans have a certain “creature comfort essentials” that must be met and I think these bathrooms don’t meet this standard… first of all it is too open and it has a tacked-on feel rather than an seamless integration that I believe this house was aiming for.

House #3: Oberfeld Residence
Zoltan Pali, FAIA - Studio Pali Fekete architects (SPF:a)


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House #3: Oberfeld Residence

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House #3: Oberfeld Residence

This house, forgive my lack of eloquence, is the “Mac-Daddy” of all the houses in this particular home tours. This house just trumps the rest in terms of design fluidity, craftsmanship and attention to detail. This 9000 sq feet house has 3 gracious levels, views that start from Downtown L.A. in the east and ends at the Pacific Ocean in the West and all the amenities you would ever need is in this house. This house is spacious and well protected from the elements yet you feel like you are living outdoors because of all the expansive glass walls and roofs that bring the outdoors in. The use of exotic materials and different surfaces are very clean, precise and well-executed. This is just an amazing house because the detailed architecture was clearly built with the utmost care and respect to the design process that everything just goes well together not to mention this house has a real lived-in feel, so it is contemporary with plenty of glass, concrete and grays but it also has ample amount of natural finishes that keeps these spaces warm and inviting.


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House #3: Oberfeld Residence

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House #3: Oberfeld Residence

As much as I was impressed with this house, it also made me question the value of space. After coming from Japan where I lived in a 2meter by 4 meter space for an entire year… this house is overtly ostentatious…come on the master closet was bigger than my dorm room in Japan and there is a super fancy massage room and a very high-tech movie theatre/bar … then again this house epitomizes the luxury and excess of Beverly Hills where it is appropriately located….

House #4: Lago Vista Guest House
Aleks Istanbullu, AIA - Aleks Istanbullu Architects


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House #4: Lago Vista Guest House

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House #4: Lago Vista Guest House

The final house was really interesting and if it is summed up in one word it would be Green… not Green Eco-Friendly-Green (which I think it is) but Green as in the color Green. The graphic wall cladding was very whimsical, contemporary and green that it suited the surroundings which were nothing but trees and shrubs. By itself, as a guest house is very well designed. The room proportions were right, it wasn’t too open yet it wasn’t cramped either. The sleeping area was well appointed and you guessed it right very green… and the living space/spare office/library was my favorite room among all the rooms of the entire home tours. The double height volume was nice; there was a perfect sized corner window that opens up the space to the outdoors and view not to mention the skylight that lit the entire wall of book cases… this would be an incredible space to work or just relax because it has this no fuss very casual vibe…


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House #4: Lago Vista Guest House

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House #4: Lago Vista Guest House

But this guest house also sticks out like a sore thumb in comparison to the main house and the surrounding houses. I wish there were elements of this guest house that was applied in the main house so the contrast was not so obvious which reads disjointed.


The AIA/LA Fall Home Tour featured four homes on hillside sites in the Hollywood Hills, stretching from Los Feliz to Beverly Hills. The tour was held on a perfect LA Sunday, which made navigating the sunny, breezy hills on my old Vespa scooter especially delightful.

House #1: Briarcliff View House
John Pugliese, Assoc. AIA - Cambia Designs LLC


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House #1: Briarcliff View House

This house, the easternmost starting point of the AIA tour, is sited on a small lot in the hills above Los Feliz, just a few blocks above Franklin Avenue. The design seemed to focus on making use of the small hillside site and of an expansive view of Los Angeles, from Downtown to the West Side. The front door enters into a fairly modest-sized living/ dining room and kitchen with a nice flow, which one notices only after being overwhelmed by the incredible view through a wall of glass. Views seemed to be a major generative element for the houseʼs design; on the tight site this mainly manifested in nearly every room in the house making use of the stunning southern view, though other views are also well considered - the kitchen is dominated by a mullion-free glazed corner nicely framing a view of the Hollywood Hills to the north-west.


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House #1: Briarcliff View House

I was only able to take a couple pictures before being shut down by an AIA docent - I was surprised to discover that photography was forbidden on the tour, though two of the houses ended up allowing it anyway. So some of the main features of this house went undocumented, including the spiral staircase which serves as the spine of the house, allowing vertical circulation and airflow to move up from the guest/office level to the main entry level and the pleasant rooftop deck above.


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House #1: Briarcliff View House

The otherwise delightful feel of the house may have been somewhat dulled for me by over-exuberant finish materials and decorating. Occasionally the risks taken in finishes (low-res laminate for bedroom walls? Faux woodgrain tile in the bathroom?) did produce some more interesting results, as in the CNC-milled panels accenting some walls. Though the design doesnʼt feel as though itʼs pushing any boundaries or making any interesting statements, the most important elements - using the view as the main generative feature, plenty of outdoor space, good flow and adaptability - add up to a very pleasant experience.

House #2: Steel House
Marc Angélil and Sarah Graham, FAIA - agps architecture


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House #2: Steel House

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House #2: Steel House

I highly enjoyed this formally simple but very well executed house, sited on a small bluff above a winding mountain road in Nichols Canyon. The canyon site engendered interesting conditions; just two blocks off Hollywood Blvd the urban markers of Los Angeles abruptly fall off and it feels much like a sparsely populated rural mountain road in Northern California. The house, apparently designed as part of an exhibition to honor the 50th anniversary of the Eames House, simultaneously makes use of the site conditions and topology as well as sets itself apart from them. Formally, the project is quite simple - essentially a steel and glass bar placed on a concrete base.


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House #2: Steel House

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House #2: Steel House

The interior felt like a well-crafted, equally spartan update of International Style modernism, though that might have been at least partly due to the somewhat oddly curated though effective selection of vintage modern furniture and domestic-themed sculpture used as set dressing in the house while it sits on the real estate market waiting to be sold. Despite the vintage furniture and Corbusian qualitites, the atmosphere and flow through the house still felt fresh.

House #3: Oberfeld Residence
Zoltan Pali, FAIA - Studio Pali Fekete architects (SPF:a)


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House #3: Oberfeld Residence

The third house was definitely the most impressively luxe of the tour, and at 10,000 square feet, three times larger than the next largest on the tour. However, all this square footage and money was used fairly tastefully, with spaces, materials, and indoors/outdoors all blending into one another into a nearly seamless, harmonious whole. The home keeps a fairly low profile from the street, almost appearing as a closed bunker. However, the home really opens up onto the lawn at the rear of the site, with an “infinity pool” impressively perched over a valley looking across Beverly Hills towards the West Side.


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House #3: Oberfeld Residence

Even the planters full of succulents were tastefully custom designed with a slight twist, somewhat reminiscent of something a reined-in Zaha Hadid might produce. The rear facade of the house facing the lawn is fully glazed and clad in what looked like white-painted steel slats but are actually louvers cut from the same cement panels cladding the bunker-like streetside facade. The louvers effectively modulate light and privacy for the bedrooms on the second floor. The basement level is crammed with an envy-inducing array of amenities including a movie theater-style screening room, an all glass temperature-controlled wine cellar, and spa complex with a dedicated massage room and sauna.


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House #3: Oberfeld Residence

While not revolutionary in conceptual terms, this house creates a viable template for a well-executed luxury neo-modern home in Los Angeles.

There were plenty of homes for sale in several of the canyons - if you want your own little slice of the Hills.

House #4: Lago Vista Guest House
Aleks Istanbullu, AIA - Aleks Istanbullu Architects


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House #4: Lago Vista Guest House

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House #4: Lago Vista Guest House

The Lago Vista Guest House, with its super 1990ʼs lime green striped cladding and small footprint was a charming counterpoint to the sleek expansive luxury of the previous house. The Lago Vista house is sited next to an existing home and occupies two volumes separated by a short glazed corridor. The first volume houses the functions of a small apartment, while the second contains a library. Views from inside the structure are tightly controlled due to the thick, largely opaque walls.


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House #4: Lago Vista Guest House

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House #4: Lago Vista Guest House

One of the more whimsical moments of the project occurs where an entire corner of the library volume has been sheared away, leaving three faces of glass, including a glass floor revealing a small water feature leading to the garden below.

AIA Tour

The tour generally seemed well organized, and it was a treat to poke around beautiful homes on stunning sites that in most of these cases would have otherwise been offlimits. I think though that those considering future AIA tours would have to decide whether itʼs worth $75-85 for what amounted to self-guided and somewhat restricted real estate open houses - or if this kind of access to private homes truly is priceless.